Leatherwood's Pensieve

July 20, 2008

Short Topics

Hey everybody! Another week has passed by. I have a note on my Blackberry where I keep track of ideas to write about. Here are its cryptic notes for this week:

• Using the name of the Lord in vain means using it inappropriately.
• TS is highly honored at Epic.
• You cannot write about it all.
• You cannot pray about it all.
• Pr 13 3 is interesting.
• Life in a square foot.
• Post on evolution.
• I read a sci-fi book.
• Redemption and renewal.
• Corporations as AI.
• What do you want the truth to be?
• Isa 6 9–10: people harden their own hearts because they don’t want to hear.
• Nikki is gone so editing might be worse.
• Rom 1–2 state of man and the West; people are corrupt and none of us have an excuse. West like children of Israel; we have the law and think we’re better than the rest of the word but we do the things we preach against.
• I dreamed of a mission project with my family in DC. At the end of it there was a presentation to a church and a love offering taken and I was richly rewarded. And my dad said he was proud of me for the way I’d handled the first assignment. “They also serve who...” I’d filled out a time sheet like I do at work, but only for the first day because I’d forgotten, yet I still was rewarded. People were also really impressed that I worked for Epic.

And that was only the thoughts that have occurred me worth writing about in the last week! We’ll see how many of them I get to, but what I wrote is true: you cannot write about it all. And this is by God’s design and it is good.

If there are any of these thoughts you want expanded that I don’t expand, let me know.

Passing through the list for the short ones:

Using the name of the Lord in vain means using it inappropriately.

I realize this seems trite. We all know the fourth Commandment: “‘You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.’” (Exodus 20:7, ESV) But normally what comes to mind as examples of taking the Lord’s name in vain is profane cursing: using God or Jesus as an expletive. And I as a “good” person don’t do that, so I tend to sort of check that one off and move on.

But it occurred to me that this commandment applies directly to places where we use God’s name to legitimize our own goals. As an extreme example, if the comic book that Cynic found is genuine (which it probably isn’t), it probably classifies as a violation of this commandment. So could the sale of some of the trinkets one can find in Christian bookstores: the name of God is being used to sell key chains and bumper stickers and plush toys. Many of the things we do “in the name of God” have little to do with honoring Him and more about advancing our own interests. This classifies as a violation of the 4th commandment.

I don’t want to take this too far to the point where I disapprove of everything that strikes me as “insufficiently holy” ... as a matter of fact, doing so is a exactly what I’m talking about: I disapprove of something so I use the name of God (or the excuse that I’m acting in defense of His dignity) to squash it.

TS is highly honored at Epic.

One of the things I strongly approve of in working for Epic is the role that TS (Technical Support) plays. This is the group of people that directly interfaces with customers after they install our software. They track down the bugs and cleanup the aftermath of stupidity (both ours and our customers’). This is what’s cool about Epic:

TS is very good. They are not undereducated grunts who don’t know what they’re talking about. They are intimately familiar with the ugly hacks and weird things that are possible within our environments. They are advocates for our customers (TS will bug you about fixes their customers are waiting on) and they can write some fairly spiffy utilities. Their code may lack some of the professional polish that ours as software developers has, but it gets the job done cleanly. I don’t want their job, but they do it well.

You cannot write about it all.

This follows directly from the principle that time is limited. There are an infinite number of things worth writing about. There is a finite amount of time and passion for doing so. This is the way God wrote the world, and it is good. There is no shame that you can’t get to everything: you were never meant to. Not in the span of a life, anyway.

You cannot pray about it all.

Ibid. Looking at the prayer bulletin in church today was daunting. Considering my family and my friends and my country and my world (and my own life, which tends to be #1, sadly), there are an infinite number of worthy things to pray about. And a finite amount of time in which to do it. There is no shame in being unable to pray about everything in the time you have: you were never meant to.

Pr 13 3 is interesting.

“Whoever guards his mouth preserves his life; he who opens wide his lips comes to ruin.” (Proverbs 13:3, ESV)

I talk a lot. I should be careful about that...perhaps I shouldn’t.

Life in a square foot.

A shamefully few times in my life, I’ve knelt down and carefully examined a few square feet of ordinary grass. It’s marvelous. There is so much there! Little bugs you don’t know the names for, toiling along. Putting yourself in their perspective the world is an incredible place! Every grass blade is different. There’s always something odd that makes you wonder “How the heck did that get there?” And there’s an answer to that question ... that you’ll probably never know. What’s the story of the stray twig? How did it get there? What has this bug done today? Where’d that trench come from? This universe is a miraculous place. In both directions. The size and glory of the planets, star systems, interstellar space, galaxies, intergalactic space, local clusters ... it just gets bigger. Pondering the size of the universe and the wonders it holds is one of the most exciting things for me. I know I’ll never be bored.

But the universe is equally large and amazing in the other direction: in the unnoticed life of insects and birds and small creatures, in bacteria and viruses, in cellular life and molecular interactions, in atomic and subatomic and quantum interactions ... it’s a marvelous universe in every direction.

Post on evolution.

That is not a small subject. It deserves its own post ... book, more like it.

I read a sci-fi book.

So I did ... and it is not a small subject either. I should write the book’s author ...

Redemption and renewal.

Corporations as AI.

What do you want the truth to be?

Nope: too big.

Isa 6 9–10: people harden their own hearts because they don’t want to hear.

And he said, “Go, and say to this people: ‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’ Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.”

Then I said, “How long, O Lord?” And he said: “Until cities lie waste without inhabitant, and houses without people, and the land is a desolate waste, and the Lord removes people far away, and the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land. And though a tenth remain in it, it will be burned again, like a terebinth or an oak, whose stump remains when it is felled.”

The holy seed is its stump.

Isaiah 6:9-13, ESV

I have struggled with this passage (or, more correctly, its New Testament citations) many times. It always seemed to me to mean that God Himself swore to “make the heart of this people dull...” so that they would not turn and be healed, similar to times in strategy games where I would do things to ensure that my enemies would not offer peace before I wanted to accept it (since rejecting an offer of peace was a no-no for a democracy, IIRC).

But I think I may have misread it. What if it isn’t God who hardens people, but people themselves? There have been times when I choose to (or at least am strongly tempted to) stop listening, stop seeking to understand because I know (or fear) that if I keep listening, if I keep trying to understand, I will ... and that I’ll have to change. Easier to stop listening now, before my choice to not believe what I know to be true is no longer a secret ... from myself as well as others.

Nikki is gone so editing might be worse.

My wife has departed on a three-week vacation to Texas, New Mexico, and Colorado. Normally I run my posts through her: she reads them, points out editing errors, and gives me advice on controversial posts. She isn’t here now, though, so my writing will probably be rougher.

It’s hard to sleep without my wife. One of my most favorite things about marriage is snuggling close to Nikki before going to sleep. I’ll survive somehow, though. :) On canned soup, mostly. :)

Rom 1–2 state of man and the West; people are corrupt and none of us have an excuse. West like children of Israel; we have the law and think we’re better than the rest of the word but we do the things we preach against.

It occurred to me that much of what Paul says about the children of Israel in Romans 1 & 2 can be applied to the modern West. The Bible is deeply embedded in our culture (much to the annoyance and frustration of some ...) and Christian mores are a foundational element of our ethics. We have the law. And, like the Jews, we have a tendency to think it makes us righteous.

But if you call yourself a Jew [Christian] and rely on the law and boast in God and know his will and approve what is excellent, because you are instructed from the law; and if you are sure that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of children, having in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth—you then who teach others, do you not teach yourself? While you preach against stealing, do you steal? You who say that one must not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who boast in the law dishonor God by breaking the law. For, as it is written, “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles [non-Western world] because of you.”

For circumcision [Christian culture] indeed is of value if you obey the law, but if you break the law, your circumcision [Christian culture] becomes uncircumcision [heathen culture]. So, if a man who is uncircumcised [a heathen] keeps the precepts of the law, will not his uncircumcision [heathen-ness :)] be regarded as circumcision [Christian culture]? Then he who is physically uncircumcised [does not call himself a Christian] but keeps the law will condemn you who have the written code and circumcision [Christian culture] but break the law. For no one is a Jew [Christian] who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision [Christianity] outward and physical. But a Jew [Christian] is one inwardly, and circumcision [Christianity] is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God.

Romans 2:17-29, ESV, comments mine

It is a common error among people possessing a Christian culture to believe themselves superior to those without it and to ignore their own violations of it. As Wilson has put it (and I can’t find it so I’ll paraphrase), such people believe inane things like there are no noble or wise people from non-Christian cultures, that being a Christian automatically makes you one of the “good guys” and not being one one of the “bad guys.”

I dreamed of a mission project with my family in DC. At the end of it there was a presentation to a church and a love offering taken and I was richly rewarded. And my dad said he was proud of me for the way I’d handled the first assignment. “They also serve who...” I’d filled out a time sheet like I do at work, but only for the first day because I’d forgotten, yet I still was rewarded. People were also really impressed that I worked for Epic.

Granted, this was a dream. I remember only wisps of it now (which is why I wrote notes for it as soon as I could). Yet God is not above using dreams (e.g. Joseph, Nebuchadnezzar) and I felt this one was ... special. That it was (at least in part) God’s way of letting me know he is pleased with me. That he hasn’t written me off as a loss to His kingdom, even though my field is not mission work or the pastoral ministry and even though I seldom see much eternal value in what I do. IIRC from the dream, I never did anything fantastic or terribly ministry-related. I just did the things I normally do. And yet I was still richly rewarded.

As the son of a wonderful missionary, with siblings dedicated to the ministry and a strong family culture of serving God with one’s life, I often have nagging doubts about my own value. I’m a bloody computer programmer. I don’t save people, I rarely talk about my faith, my life seems fairly sterile. I often wonder if God is secretly disappointed in me. I wonder if He’s written me off as a failure and has turned His face to more promising children. People who do things right. Who dedicate their lives to Him and serve Him wholeheartedly. I wonder if God hates me. Or just doesn’t care. Or has forgotten me. Or if I’m just one of millions of children he vaguely loves but never thinks of (believing that such children exist is heresy).

I hope that counts a post, and that you didn’t mind its haphazard switching among topics. If you have any comments, either leave them openly here or send them to me. (If you don’t know my e-mail address, post a comment asking for it. I’ll try to get it to you.)

Peace be with you all.